Disney Cruise, see ya next time!

We're slowly recovering from a week long adventure sailing around the Western Caribbean sea, enjoying tons of good food, mingling with Disney characters and more than anything . . . relaxing. It sure was a great trip. I would highly recommend a Disney Cruise to anyone that is contemplating taking kids on a cruise with them. They cater so much to families. I'll include some pictures here in the blog, but if you want to see a better snapshot of our cruise (no pun intended), check out the shared pictures (and even order your own if you want!) from our most recent print order at Wal-Mart.

We started out in Port Canaveral on Saturday the 28th. We actually stopped by the Kennedy Space Center before boarding since we just happened to be there on the 20th Anniversary of the Challenger explosion. There was a service going on at the space center for family of the astronauts, hence the picture at the end of the blog with the flag at half mast. We left Port Canaveral Saturday evening and sailed through the night to Key West, FL. Since it was Sunday, there wasn't a whole lot we could do but walk around the city. We got back on the boat and sailed all day Monday enjoying the tons of activites on teh boat and arrived in Grand Cayman Tuesday morning to some beautiful turquoise water. We spent the day swimming with stingrays on a sandbar about 4 miles off shore and snorkling the nearby reefs. Isaac wasn't too thrilled about being in the water with "Mr. Ray", but Brooklyn seemed to enjoy it. We then sailed all day Wednesday and arrived in Nassau, Bahamas Thursday morning and had a local Bahamian show us the island including a small zoo where we fed birds, walked with flamingos, and a beach where the waves crashed right on the sand due to the steeply sloped beach. Brian (my brother-in-law) got beaten to death by the waves and has the scars on his back to prove it. From the Bahamas we sailed through the night to Disney's own private island, Castaway Cay (pronounced "key"). The island was beautiful and very much out in the middle of nowhere. Isaac enjoyed burying himself and others in the sand and playing in the waves of the lagoon. We rented bikes and biked around part of the island. It really was a nice end to the whole trip. We sailed through the night and arrived back at Port Canaveral Saturday morning to some pretty heavy rain. We really did luck out with good weather and fairly calm seas on the entire trip. Since our flight didn't leave until later Sat. evening, we headed back to the Kennedy Space Center and got to see the Space Shuttle launch pads and other rockets up close and personal. The kids loved seeing the astronauts and rockets all around.

Luckily no one got sick on the cruise. I only took some motion sickness pills the first night, but didn't have any problems the rest of the week. The food was outstanding. Our dinner servers were awesome and really had fun with the kids. The "Pirates IN the Caribbean" theme night was fun. With Disney's huge outdoor movie screen, Brian and I watched "Pirates of the Caribbean" while sailing under the stars of the Caribbean Sea. Bet no one else has ever done that before.

Because Disney does own several of the new movies out in the theaters currently, we were able to see movies onboard such as "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Glory Road" in their very nice 1,000 seat theater. Now back to normal life as we all know it. It sure was fun to live the VIP life for a week though. Can't wait until next time.